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Top UN, EU officials meet on issues of mutual interest

Xinhua, June 7, 2016 Adjust font size:

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday met with Federica Mogherini, the high representative of the European Union (EU) for foreign affairs and security policy and vice-president of the European Commission, and the two discussed various issues of mutual interest.

"They discussed various issues of mutual interest, including the Israeli-Palestinian question, Syria, Libya, Yemen, migration, Afghanistan, and the situation in various parts of Africa," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters. "The secretary-general thanked the European Union for its active engagement and its strong support for United Nations efforts in those areas."

Mogherini was at UN Headquarters in New York to attend an open debate at the UN Security Council on the UN-EU cooperation, at which she asked the 15-nation council to authorize EU's naval forces in the Mediterranean to enforce the UN arms embargo on Libya.

She asked the most powerful UN body to adopt a resolution on authorizing Operation Sophia, the EU mission set up to stem migrant trafficking from Libya, to enforce the arms embargo on the high seas, off the coast of Libya.

"This is the course of action that our European Union has chosen: constant coordination with the United Nations, to best serve our collective interests," said Mogherini.

She told reporters here after she spoke to the Security Council that the EU is ready to work with the United Nations and relevant countries to make the Mediterranean and Libyan waters a safe place after more than 1,000 people migrating from North Africa to Europe became victims of a series of shipwrecks last week.

In 2015, the EU launched the naval operation to reduce migrant and refugee smuggling across the Mediterranean.

In October last year, the Security Council adopted a resolution to authorize member states, including the European Union, to take actions on vessels that are used for people smuggling from Libya. Endit